Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/8/22

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe dies after being shot at campaign event

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, July 8th. With us, we have White House bureau chief at Politico and the host of Way Too Early, Jonathan Lemire, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. And we begin with that breaking news. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is dead after being shot twice this morning. Officials say Abe was campaigning for a candidate ahead of Japan's upcoming House of Councilors elections, where he was shot from behind once in the back and the other in the neck with what appeared to be a homemade gun. This happened in the city of Nara, about 20 miles southeast of Osaka. The chaos from the shooting and the subsequent takedown of the man police say carried out the attack was all caught on camera. And we warn you, some of this video may be incredibly disturbing. The president's decision is final. Abe will be released. Abe was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital after officials say he went into a state of cardiac arrest.

The suspect, according to police, is a former member of Japan's Navy. Speaking to the country after the attack, the country's current prime minister and Abe's successor called the shooting a, quote, despicable, barbarous act that we cannot allow. Let's go right now to Beijing. NBC News foreign correspondent Janice Mackey-Frayer. Janice, it's hard unless unless people follow Japanese politics to understand what a massive figure that the prime minister was and the pedigree, his grandfather also being premier, his father having the number two position, the longest serving premier in Japanese history. The entire region, the entire world must be in a state of shock.

Well, Shinzo Abe was a political giant in Japan, the longest serving leader in Japan's history, a prominent figure who was still popular on the campaign trail. It's why he was giving that speech in western Japan today to to help that other candidate. So there is no understating how this is reverberating for people in Japan. And also, we cannot understate how exceptionally rare gun violence is in the country. Japan has among the most stringent gun laws in the world, so that he suffered such a violent death. This assassination is also profoundly shaking people in a place just unaccustomed to gun violence. Yeah, this morning, the Washington Post reports that firearms are strictly regulated in Japan. Gun violence most often associated with the Japanese criminal network.

Last year, eight of the 10 shootings in Japan were related to that syndicate, resulting in only one death and four injuries. Janice, if we could talk about Abe and and how he was trying to actually move Japan forward from from the pacifist position that the United States and other leaders of the post-war world placed on them, and actually was trying to get Japan in a position where they could defend themselves or at least be far more active with the United States and standing up to what he saw as a rising threat from China. Well, Shinzo Abe had important relationships with several U.S. presidents. And as you say, he was trying to expand the reach, the scope and the strength of Japan's military. And how large he figured on the political landscape showed why he was popular on the campaign trail.

What we know of the suspect who was tackled by Abe's Secret Service detail at the scene is that he apparently told investigators that he was not motivated by political beliefs, that he acted out of what he called a dissatisfaction with Abe himself. So while Shinzo Abe loomed very large on the political scene in Japan for several years, his politics were not always popular. What we know from what happened, those two shots that are still reverberating, Abe went down bleeding. He was unconscious when he was airlifted to hospital, reportedly had no vital signs. Doctors say that they tried everything to save his life.

They tried resuscitating, but that he had lost so much blood from wounds to his chest and two small wounds to his neck. What had happened was that the arteries were so damaged and he lost so much blood that triggered heart failure. And he was pronounced dead just after 5.03 p.m. local time in Japan, which is just after four o'clock in the morning Eastern time. The current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, is expected to speak to the press shortly. Again, this news has been reverberating for much of the day across Japan. It did not look good for Shinzo Abe when he was being airlifted to hospital, but still confirmation of his death, of such a violent death, is really, really rocking people in Japan. And Janice, condolences obviously coming in from around the world.

I believe I saw this morning the Chinese government also sent their condolences, despite the fact that they obviously had a tough relationship. The former prime minister, one of the fiercest advocates for Taiwan and warning again recently that that Taiwan could be invaded and the United States and the rest of the world needed to defend them. Talk about that, that relationship with Taiwan and also his somewhat difficult relationship with China. There have been strained relations between China and Japan for for decades and and certainly on social media in China today. Some of the comments on Weibo, not worth mentioning, but we're gleeful hearing about the fate of Shinzo Abe. Relations were further strained even in the past couple of weeks with Fumio Kishida appearing to step up to build,

to strengthen ties with the U.S. in attending the NATO summit in Madrid. Officials here took note of that. They were not pleased with that. They are seeing an impact on regional relations, again, all linked to what is expected to be a Chinese move on Taiwan. Again, much of this is still reverberating across the region. And as you say, leaders around the world are expressing their condolences. So many of those leaders had met Shinzo Abe, had relations with Shinzo Abe. And so the news is still sinking in. And again, for the people in Japan to lose such a prominent figure in such a violent way is quite jarring. NBC's Janice Mackey-Frayer reporting for us in Beijing.

Janice, thank you so much. We greatly appreciate it. Gene, it is again for we are obviously the United States, not just news, but culturally, we focus far more obviously on what is to the east of us in Britain and Europe. Not quite as much with Japan, despite their extraordinary power. But talk, if you can, for one minute, just for Americans waking up who may not may not have as much of a understanding of of what a massive figure he was in Japanese politics. Just the the influence that he's had on Japan, not only himself, but his father, as well as his grandfather. Right. We tend to think we tend to forget about Japan. Japan is the third largest economy in the world and an extremely important country. Of course, our foreign policy, we have we talked for 20 years about a pivot toward the Pacific in order to deal with China's rise and rise to becoming a rival of the United States.

Arguably, the Biden administration is finally executing that pivot. And he has emphasized this relationship with the Quad group that Japan is a member of. Shinzo Abe is arguably the most important and certainly one of the most important political figures in Japan in the post-World War II era, is the longest serving prime minister Japan ever had. And his policies were somewhat controversial in Japan in that he agreed with the United States that Japan should take a more, I don't know if militaristic is the word, but should be more aggressive in its defense spending, in its defense policy, and more prepared to face the rise of a rising China. And he executed some of those policies. That again was controversial. We have no idea what the motive was for the shooting.

But this is so shocking. This does not happen in Japan, a city of a country of one hundred and twenty five million people that has perhaps 10 shootings, 10 instances of gun violence in a year. This this is incomprehensible, I believe, to most Japanese as they are as they are watching what's happening. And I can't imagine this happening in in their country that there would be a shooting and a death like this. Say nothing of it being somebody so important to Japan for such a long time. For such a long time. And we believe we're going to be talking to the ambassador, United States Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, in a few minutes. But Mika, we have much more to cover here. Your father actually knew the prime minister.

Shinzo Abe actually has a couple of firsts in Japan's history. He was the youngest prime minister when he first became prime minister at age 52. That didn't end well and didn't last long. But then he returned in 2012 and then became the longest running prime minister. His grandfather was prime minister of Japan. And many see his legacy, and this is to your point, Joe, as strengthening relations with the United States and thus strengthening Japan's defense capabilities. So he's a major figure in Japanese history and in world history. Jonathan Lemire, is there any reaction from the White House yet? Yeah, we have a statement from the White House expressing their shock and sadness about former Prime Minister Abe's death. They said their thoughts are with his family and the grieving nation. President Biden has an event

later today on abortion rights, expecting to sign an executive order. And aides have suggested that he will also address Abe's death then. That's a little later this morning. We should note Abe, as you said, the longest serving prime minister in Japan's history, left office in 2020. So he cited health issues. So he and Biden did not overlap while Biden was president. But Biden knew him very well while he was vice president. They met a number of times, both in Japan and in here in the United States. Abe is thought of very warmly here in the diplomatic community in the United States. He also worked to establish, tried to establish a good relationship with former President Trump, as he did indeed try to align

Japan more closely with the United States. And we should underscore, he was assassinated while delivering a campaign speech in a town not far from Osaka. The current prime minister of Japan, Prime Minister Kishida, just put out a statement mourning the death of his friend, but also saying that this Sunday's elections, for which Abe was campaigning, will continue, that he feels like the democratic process needs to go on. And therefore, despite this assassination, they will go on as scheduled this Sunday. Let's bring in now U.S. national editor and columnist of the Financial Times, Ed Luce, who's on the phone with us. Ed, you obviously follow

this very closely. Give us, first of all, your reaction to the stunning manner of Shinzo Abe's death and also what his legacy is for Japan and the world. Thanks, Jonathan. I mean, it's obviously an utterly freakish event in Japan. This just doesn't happen. I believe the last successful assassination of a politician was in 1960. This doesn't happen. It's not even thought of in Japanese political culture.

His legacy is huge. Abenomics was the sort of great structural reform of the Japanese economy named after him. But I think equally importantly was his amendment of Japan's pacifist constitution to make Japan's so-called self-defense forces less timid and Japan's alliance with the United States, more practical. And he was a founding member of the Quad, which some see as the Indo-Pacific's, I guess, embryonic NATO. So he's been a hugely significant figure in Japanese politics.

And his career was by no means over. He was killed while campaigning for elections for the upper chamber and at 67, you know, was not over the hill. Yeah, you know, it's interesting that over the past six months, obviously, Europe has awakened to the growing threat from Russia, the threat from Russia, and are taking back some more of their defense capabilities that they ceded after World War II. It's interesting, Abe was a bit ahead of his time in that respect, wasn't he? He was he was very he was tough on China. He was a close ally of Taiwan and like you and others have said, upset some people in China because he wanted to move away from a pacifist constitution and have Japan be in a position to not only defend themselves, but to be a strong ally of the United States in counteracting China's growth? That's absolutely right. I mean, his two

premierships and particularly his second stint coincided with a far more ebullient China, a China that was no longer, you know, hiding its light, as the phrase goes, and keeping a low profile. A China that was more ebullient, much more wolf warrior-like. And Abe was, in a way, Japan's answer to this more assertive Japan, because Japanese leaders have tended to be very quiet, very consensus-oriented, very timid. And Abe wasn't like that at all. He was more like a sort of presidential figure and not afraid to challenge longstanding principles of Japanese politics in order to adapt it to this much harsher world

that he believed Japan was facing with an assertive China. And that legacy will long outlast him. It's a major shift in Japan's posture, if you like. All right. So we are looking at pictures now of just horrific news out of Japan, shock across the country and around the world as the former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has been shot dead, assassinated. And word is that he was in the middle of a political event. He was shot twice and rushed to the hospital. They tried in vain to keep him alive. And the former Japanese prime minister

has been assassinated. We're going to be covering this throughout the show this morning, all four hours of morning. Joe, there is the video of the attack, which is very disturbing. And one of the things that a lot of people are talking about right now is how somebody could walk right up to him and shoot him and how guns are not prevalent in Japan and how this may have been a homemade gun. So there's a lot of unanswered questions and we have much more to come on this breaking story. We want to quickly turn now to the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The Associated Press calling him the quote messiest of prime ministers, dogged by one scandal after another.

Johnson announced he would resign as conservative party leader, but will stay on as prime minister until a new leader is in place, a process that could take weeks. Possible contenders include Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and others. The White House gave a boilerplate statement saying the United States and Britain's special relationship will endure. When asked if he had a reaction to Johnson's announcement, President Biden said, no, it's part of the process. And Eugene, your latest op-ed for The Washington Post is entitled Boris Johnson's fall shows the limits of shamelessness as a superpower. Interesting what is happening there and what the limits are there compared to here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we haven't found our limit yet. We're still deep into the shamelessness era of our politics.

But Britain finally had enough of Boris Johnson's antics. I remember Boris when I was London bureau chief of the Post. And he was Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. And he basically made stuff up. I mean, he did. He just made stories up, got them on the front page, became kind of a star. He would find some little germ of truth or half truth and then concoct a whole sensational story about the dastardly Eurocrats and what they were doing to to little England. And and and he sort of, you know, failed up upward through his his his rise was was that was like that.

And and his fall is being accompanied by quite a bit of glee among a lot of his his enemies. It's interesting. The Conservative Party was willing to go along with Boris, much as the Republican Party has been willing to go along with Donald Trump, as long as as long as the conservatives were winning. But I think the major factor here is it's not that that Johnson was had become a different person. He was the same person he always was. Sc scandal after scandal, lie after lie. But the conservatives, the party was falling apart. And it was so far down in the polls. And finally, the party had had it.

And they realized that with Johnson as leader, they were they were going to suffer a crushing defeat. I was going to say there are no profiles in courage in the Tory party. Some people asking why this would happen in Britain and not happen in the United States, because it served the politicians, the Tories, the conservatives in Britain served their own political interests to turn on Johnson. Many Republicans in this country have not yet reached that conclusion, which is why right now, obviously, we seem to be in a bit of a transition. Perhaps this is the future fate of Donald Trump with conservative, well, not conservatives, with Republicans. But we shall see. Jonathan, really quickly, quite a statement, quite a statement from from Joe Biden and the White House on Boris Johnson leaving office.

I almost had to wipe a tear from my eye. It was so heartfelt. No comment. Nothing to say. Yeah, it's a process. Whatever. Yeah. President Biden was asked about an event yesterday. Indeed, said it's part of the process. There it goes. And the White House statement itself made little mention of Johnson, just simply reaffirming that the ties between the U.S. and the U.K. will continue. Certainly in Washington, the greatest concern would be, will the change at the helm at 10 Downing impact the U.K.'s commitment to Ukraine's defense? It seems like it would not be, regardless of who succeeds Johnson. But despite this smiling photo here taken last year at the G7 in Cornwall, hosted by Johnson, Biden and the outgoing prime minister, not particularly close. They got along fine, aides saidhip to some of his other world leaders and resisted Boris Johnson's

declarations at the G7 last week in Germany for all the world leaders to take off their shirts in a threatening post of Vladimir Putin. So that will probably be less likely to occur with Johnson's successor. Yeah, thank God for the discretion shown there. So we've got a lot to cover at the top of seven. We're going to be talking to the ambassador, United States Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel. Also, Mika, on the story of Boris Johnson, Anne Applebaum has an absolutely withering piece on Johnson. She has known him for a very long time. And and we also, of course, can be talking about Mark Leibovich's extraordinary piece also on The Atlantic.

This is sort of our this morning. This is our Atlantic. This is sort of our our Atlantic get together, I guess. But also Mark Leibovich's extraordinary piece. We're going to be going through that and looking at that as well on on the pathetic men who have enabled Donald Trump to stay in power for as long as he has. A lot of major events, world events to cover this morning. We'll be following all of the new developments out of Japan following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Also ahead, Brittany Griner faces an uncertain future after pleading guilty to drug charges in Moscow. Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is involved in the diplomatic efforts to bring the basketball star home. She joins us next. Plus, it's been 18 months since the attack on

the Capitol and prosecutors are closing in on a new milestone. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's 29 past the hour. American basketball star Brittany Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in Russian court yesterday. Griner's plea coming on the second day of her trial there and more than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport where Russian officials said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. One of Greiner's attorneys told reporters after the hearing that Greiner admitted the vape cartridges were hers, but said she brought them to Russia unintentionally because she packed in a hurry. Greiner's legal team also issued a statement writing in part, quote,

considering the nature of her case, the insignificant amount of substance and BG's personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport. The defense hopes that the plea will be considered by the court as a mitigating factor and there will be no severe sentence. Greiner faces up to 10 years in prison. Her next hearing is scheduled for next Thursday. We'll be following that, obviously. Joining us now, though, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. She just returned from Europe where she was representing the U.S. at the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe. She has been speaking out on behalf of Brittany Griner. And we thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. What are you hearing about the possibility of Brittany Griner either receiving a shorter sentence or being able to come home in any way? There's been apparently no contact between her and her family or very minimal. Well, good morning and thank you so very much for having me. If I might offer my sympathy to the Japanese people for the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe. But it is clear that the Russian judicial legal system is worse than a paper tiger. There is no legal system. And I want Americans to imagine that the charges against Brittany Griner included smuggling.

They were charging her as a major trafficker of drugs. Frankly, what happened to Brittany Reiner and whatever happened in terms of what she had would have been in any court of law in the United States, a dismissal or an acquittal. And so what had to happen, this daughter of a Vietnam veteran, daughter of Houston and daughter of Texas, is there had to be a strategy. I started working on this issue about five days after she was detained around February, which by the way, everyone should know that it was within days of the Olympics and Russia had been embarrassed, Putin had been embarrassed by doping charges. And here he has a call that comes like a gift. We have Brittany Griner, a two-time Olympian, WNBA player, but more importantly, someone who played seven years in Russia. So here we are with bogus charges

and the worst treatment that you can have for a defendant. You're in a cage. And so the idea of this plea was to allegedly begin the process that Russia would move her through what they call a trial. There will still be a trial and they still have to present witnesses. And in the meantime, as I met at the OSCE, we made pronouncements about Brittany, about political. Importantly, what we want to do is to move expeditiously the negotiations, which will include a potential flop. That's what has to be the future of Britney and Paul Whelan. Well, we are following so much breaking news this morning, including this. Please keep us posted. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so much for coming on this morning and coming

up. We're going to get an update on where prosecutions stand now, 18 months after the riot at the Capitol. Also ahead, should Democrats cut President Biden some slack? Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank says they should. He joins us next in our next hour of Morning Joe. Thirty eight past the hour. Look at the sun coming up over the Capitol. It's just absolutely beautiful. You know, I love Washington. Yeah. You know where else it was beautiful last night? Where? Not in Fenway, Jonathan Lemire. Not in Fenwayway jonathan lamere not in fenway this is not good timing this is this is quite a skid our red sox have had this isn't we we said at the beginning this is incredibly important run over the past couple weeks well we haven't been running we've we've just sort of been sitting there eating Dunkin' Donuts and not playing baseball. It's really bad.

Yeah, the Sox had a terrific June, despite losing ground in the standings to the Yankees, who seem like the greatest team ever put on God's green earth. But we have slumped at the wrong time. Lost 2 out of 3 to the Cubs. Lost 2 out of 3 to the Rays. And now we open up this stretch, four games at home at Fenway against the Yankees. We then come here next weekend for three games. Here's a play by Franci Cordero.

Pop up. Oh, yeah, sure. No problem. Okay. See, usually first baseman catch that ball, Joe. Just going to put that out there. Usually they do. When a pop-up is hit straight up near to them, they tend to catch them.

Well, at least it wasn't an important game, right? If you're going to drop a ball in the infield, at least you do it in a game where nobody's watching. Yeah, you do it against the first game at Fenway this year against the Juggernaut Yankees, who are 60-23. Rafael Devers, who the Red Sox desperately need to lock up to a

contract extension, he had two home runs, but he was our only bright spot. And Josh, a note, the final score was 6-5. A run scored on that botched pop-up. That's right, the winning run scored on that botched pop-up. That's right. The winning run scored on that botched pop-up. Sox lose the first one to the Yankees. They play again tonight.

Yeah, play again tonight. I don't know. Maybe they need to start winning some games, Mika. You look so nice. You dress up so well for the news. And then you just dive right into sports. We have so much else to do just because Joe did. Today, former President Trump's White House counsel, Pat

Cipollone, is expected to give testimony, Mika, to the January 6th committee. Sources tell NBC News it will happen in private and it will be recorded. Cipollone had an informal interview with the committee back in April. He is considered a critical witness following testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. The next hearing for the committee is Tuesday morning, but it has not said who is testifying. Congressman Jamie Raskin tells Politico the focus will be evidence of a, quote, tremendous convergence of interests between the domestic violent extremist groups and the broader MAGA movement. Joining us now, senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein, is reporting on the prosecutions of those who stormed the Capitol.

Josh, where do things stand now? Well, Mika, I mean, it's not that the Justice Department has not been moving on these January 6 prosecutions. We're looking so far at about 855 people who have been arrested in connection with the events of January 6, making this by far the largest investigation and prosecution of a criminal event in U.S. history. And about 40 percent of those people have already either pleaded guilty or been found guilty at trial. So it is a massive undertaking to the extent people have complaints about it. It's really about how far the decisions have reached into the upper echelons of the Trump orbit, not so

much in the overall effort that the Justice Department is making, which has been mammoth. Josh, this is Gene Robinson. What does the committee want to hear from Pat Cipollone? He probably will not talk about his direct conversations with President Trump. He might claim executive privilege or lawyer-client-client privilege. What can he tell them that they need to know? Well, I think they want to see if he will verify key elements of Cassidy Hutchinson's very compelling account. Remember, she claims that Pat Cipollone told her that they were going to be

charged with all kinds of crimes, including fraud and obstruction of justice and so forth, if they allowed President Trump to go forward with his plan to visit the Capitol on January 6th, presumably after the rally that he held there, which did not happen. But the question is, you know, will he show that her account is accurate? It's come under attack by various people since she delivered it a week or so ago. And so that that's, I think, the primary thing they'll be looking for. Cipollone, he won't testify, as we understand it, as you say, Eugene, about his direct contacts with the president and their exact conversations. But it sounds like he will talk about what he said and

did with other people in the White House. And it would be pretty significant to hear that concern from him, because remember, this is a Trump loyalist through and through. I mean, he defended Trump in the impeachment hearings. And so he's someone who clearly was in the president's corner politically. But to hear these concerns about potential criminal charges against the White House staff will be pretty dramatic if that's the testimony that comes forward from him. So, Josh, tell us, if you will, the role this testimony videotaped, as you said, could play in the January 6th committee hearings next week. We know the one on Tuesday is scheduled to be about the Trump world's ties to hate groups like the Proud Boys

and Oath Keepers. But it seems like this may fit in more to the other one, Thursday, which at the moment is slated for prime time, potentially even the finale of the committee's presentations. How central do they think Cipollone's testimony will be to that? It could be pretty central to that. I mean, Cipollone had his hand in a lot of different things. You know, for example, this issue of the coup at the Justice Department. Remember, the president was toying with the idea of replacing the attorney general, which would have probably or the acting attorney general, which probably would have resulted in the resignation of everybody at the Justice Department. Cipollone was directly involved in that activity. So he had a hand in, according to the accounts of people

we've talked to, resisting a lot of aspects of President Trump's effort to fight back against his loss in the November election. And so I think he could be a very pivotal role. But you're correct, Jonathan, it doesn't seem to fit exactly with the Tuesday hearing on the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. It seems more to fit with the broader themes of the committee, perhaps going into some sort of a wrap up, a high profile wrap up hearing that they may be trying to stage. All right, senior affair, legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein, thank you very much. And coming up, we continue to cover the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Coming up at the top of the hour, we'll be speaking live with the ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel. He'll be joining us live on this

breaking story. Again, Shinzo Abe, former prime minister, longest running prime minister of Japan, assassinated at point blank range. A man walked up to him and shot him twice while he was at a political event. Rahm Emanuel will be joining us momentarily to talk about what this all means and give us any more updates on what happened. We'll be right back with much more. Morning, Joe. Just about 10 minutes before the top of the hour, a live look at the White House in Washington, D.C., the sun coming up over Washington. So Mark Leibovich has a new essay in The Atlantic entitled The Most Pathetic Men in America. It's adapted from his forthcoming book, Thank You for Your Servitude. And in it, Leibovich takes a look at what he calls the, quote, slavishly devoted Republicans whom Trump

drew to his side. He writes in part this. It's been said before, but never can be emphasized enough without the complicity of the Republican Party. And Joe, this is a point you've been making all along. Donald Trump would be just a glorified geriatric Fox watching golfer. I've interviewed scores of these collaborators trying to understand why they did what they did and how they could live with it. These were the Kevin McCarthy's and the Lindsey Graham's and all the other busy parasitic suck ups who made the Trump era work for them, who humored and indulged him all the way down to the last exhausted strains of American democracy. Leibovich writes in part this. I've known both men, Graham and McCarthy, for years. They are a classically Washington type, fun to be around,

starstruck and desperate to keep their jobs or get better ones to maximize their place in the all important mix. On various occasions, I've asked them in so many words how they could sidle up to Trump like they have. The answer basically is that they did it because it was the savviest course, because it was best for them. Nearly all elected Republicans in Washington needed Trump's blessing and voters to remain there. People like McCarthy and Graham benefited a great deal from making it work with Trump or managing the relationship, as they say. I could get Trump on the phone faster than any staff person who worked for him could get him on the phone, than any staff person who worked for him could

get him on the phone, McCarthy bragged to me. There was always a breathless racing quality to both men's voices when they talked about the thrill ride of being one of Trump's guys. Joe. Yeah, you know, it's fascinating. There's a great piece. And what's fascinating is that Mark Leibovich has a relationship with both of the two Republicans he profiles, Kevin McCarthy and Lindsey Graham, and he's gotten them to be quite honest through the years about how transactional their relationship with Trump has been. He asks Lindsey Graham, he said, basically, after attacking Donald Trump harder than anybody else did in 2016, how could you be such a sycophant to him? And Lindsey said, how could you how could you do this?

And Lindsey said, well, if you know anything about me, it would be odd for me not to do this. And this is to try to stay relevant. And, you know, Mika, what's so interesting is, I mean, I've known Lindsey since 94. Yeah. And, I mean, Lindsey just, he just wanted to be at the center of things. But aren't there certain moments in his career where he kind of stood up for people? I mean, he had. Yeah, no.

No? I mean, if it's. I know Meadows absolutely goes where the wind goes. Well, and so does Lindsay. I mean, you know, in 90, I guess it was 96, 97. We had a coup attempt against Newt Gingrich and 12 of us, sort of the the red hots, the true believers, as we were called extremists, as as a lot of Republicans call us, would have secret meetings. And Lindsey would always be in Lindsey's office. And I never understood why it was in Lindsey's office because he wasn't a true believer. I mean, he just really didn't care for us.

It was about the deficit. It was about the debt. It was about smaller government. And just Lindsey didn't really care about it. But somehow the meetings were always at Lindsey's place and would have these secret meetings. And we just started noticing that every time we showed up at the secret meetings, we had to walk through members of the press on both sides of the hall. And we found out that Lindsay would have these secret coup meetings against Newt Gingrich. And Lindsay would always tell the press the time and the place for the meetings.

And at one point, we were like, Lindsay, you got to stop telling the press where our secret coup meetings are. And somebody said, yeah, Lindsay's a nice guy, but I wouldn't want him guarding the Pentagon. But then he went from that to being John McCain's best buddy, following John McCain around when he thought that served his interests. And then which, of course, John McCain didn't think much of us, those of us going after Gingrich and those of us because we were again, we were seen as being too intense on on budget issues. And then he went to McCain.

And then Gene Robinson, just like that, when Trump got elected after trashing throughout 2016, he became Trump sycophant. So again, with Lindsey, has nothing to do with issues. It's just as Lindsey tells Leibovich, and that's what's so extraordinary

about this piece, he admits it. He says he only cares about being at the center of things, being relevant. Yeah, it's all transactional. It's all situational. Lindsey Graham is a senator to be a senator. I mean, that's basically it. And he and McCarthy and others rationalize this by saying, well, you know, it lets me I still have a seat at the table.

I'm still able to, you know, to to to influence events and policies. But but to what end? What do they believe in, if anything? What do they actually still believe in American democracy or is that also sort of an optional feature that you can you can decide not to not to include with your package? I mean, it is it is it is incredible. And what this dereliction of duty on the part of these elected Republicans has done, it has also sort of allowed the Republican base, because they won't level with the Republican base, they won't tell the truth. It has allowed the Republican base to also sort of go off the reservation. And you have this entire party now from base to the top that is that that is really out of control, yet still has a lot of power. It is it is an astounding but horrible situation for our political system to be in. One of the things I've never understood about the Republican Party, I just talked about our coup against Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich is the first Republican speaker in 40 years. And that certainly wasn't a popular move to make in my district. Held town hall meetings, told them why it had to happen. They said, OK. I mean, some of them didn't love it, but they understood. And that's the thing. These Republicans have never leveled from from beginning to end about Trump. And so but these two, Mika, the reason why he focuses on these two, look at them on January the 6th.

They both speak out against Donald Trump. Lindsey says he's done with Trump. You have Kevin McCarthy who says that Trump should be removed from office, that he's going to tell Trump that he needs to be removed from office. And then he goes scurrying down to Mar-a-Lago and again, returns to being a sycophant. Absolute shame. Again, after the guy on the left tried to overthrow a presidential election.

Oh, my God. It's just hard to understand. But we learn a lot in Mark's book. Eugene Robinson, thank you. And Mark Leibovich will be our guest on Monday to talk more about his forthcoming book. Eugene Robinson, thank you. And Mark Leibovich will be our guest on Monday to talk more about his forthcoming book. And coming up, we're getting back to this morning's big breaking news on the world stage, the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel joins us at the top of the hour. Morning Joe is coming right back.